Want maps on your Magellan GC?
Turn it into a 310!

I like messing around with things, and I had a bit of time to waste tonight so.... I decided to see if I could turn my GC into a 310. Well it turns out you can, and here's how...

Disclaimer:

The procedure I will describe works for me, but you are the one that ultimately takes the risk while crossflashing your GPS. This likely will void your warranty although as it turns out it is possible to turn it back into a GC easily enough.

1-First thing to do is make sure you are running gc firmware version 1.7, I dont know if this is important, but mine was at 1.7 when I started so I will recommend the same. 1.7 can be found here
2-Connect your GC to your computer and update to 1.7 if you haven't already, also make a backup copy of the entire contents of your GC (you can use this later to restore if you have to)
3-You will need to get a copy of the 310 firmware version 1.12 and version 1.17 Both files can be found here hosted by cacher Allory
4-Both files are a self extracting executable, but we dont want to run them we want to take the files from them, so you will need to extract their contents to a separate folder for each one using winzip or winrar etc.
5-For some reason my GC will not run 1.17, it keeps saying "restarting to improve performance" and it gets stuck in an infinite reboot loop so that is why we run 1.12, but we do need a couple files from 1.17 (at least I think we do, you could try skipping this step but it is something I did so I know that it works). In the extracted files of 1.17 go to the folder titled "copy group 5" and copy the 4 files from there into the root folder of the GC. ( the root folder is not a folder titled root, its just the main folder as in D:\ or whatever drive letter your gc shows up as, but I will call it D:\ for the rest of this)
6-Disconnect the usb and let it reboot, it will say installing update and will eventually reboot but it will still be a GC, thats good.
7-Reconnect the usb. Make sure you have a backup of every file on your GC, and then completely delete everything on it, do not unplug the usb at this point or there could be serious trouble. Create a folder in the root of the GC called "App"
8-Now we will need to browse to the extracted files of 310 v1.12, and start copying some over;
-- in copy group 1, transfer the demo folder to D:\App\
-- in copy group 2, transfer all 6 files to D:\App\
-- in copy group 3, transfer the one file to D:\App\
-- in copy group 4, transfer all 7 files to D:\App\
-- in copy group 6, transfer all files to D:\App\
-- in copy group 8, transfer the folder to D:\ (this may create itself but just to be sure put it there any way)

9-Now you are ready to disconnect, it will reboot and ask for language settings etc, and may reboot once on its own, but you now have a green Magellan 310
10-The basemap is now gone, but you can reinstall a new one using the Vantage point software as it has one included. You can also install various other free maps from websites like http://www.magicmaps.ca

Have fun!

Side note, when you have it hooked up to vantage point it will probably tell you that a newer software version is available. Dont bother running the update as it will just fail anyway. Even though it is now a 310, the installer will throw up an error saying that it isnt a 310.

If at any time you want it back to being a gc, just delete everything on it and copy your backup files back onto it.

[quote name='savant9' timestamp='1331546463' post='4993536']
I like messing around with things, and I had a bit of time to waste tonight so.... I decided to see if I could turn my GC into a 310. Well it turns out you can, and here's how...

Disclaimer:

The procedure I will describe works for me, but you are the one that ultimately takes the risk while crossflashing your GPS. This likely will void your warranty although as it turns out it is possible to turn it back into a GC easily enough.

Tried it, and went into a boot loop (restarting to improve.....); noticed the number of files in each folder didn't always agree. It did start to boot as a 310 though. Any sugestions?

I had the same thought of using the 310 firmware on the GC but not the time to try it out yet. Just be aware that once Magellan realizes that people are using the 310 firmware to get additional features that aren't normally on the GC they will make changes to the 310 firmware to prevent it from being installed on the GC.

This seems like a fun diversion! I just started geocaching a few months ago and I want out and bought the GC as a Christmas gift to myself without really knowing anything. I have been toying with the idea of selling it and getting a different GPS unit but I still haven't found anything that justifies the cost of a different unit other than the electronic compass... So until I can find some way to justify the expense, I'm stuck with the GC and this sounds like something that could make it a little more interesting.

One question - does the new firmware then enable the other features of the 310 that are missing from the GC? It looks like the 310 has a few features in the navigation area that the GC is lacking.

If nothing else, this will get rid of that silly rotary menu in the GC - I hate that!

Considering my GC was doing nothing but a paperweight, yea, I did this, and sure enough, it's a 310 now. The only problem is I can't get the detailed street maps transferred from the GC to the 310 so I just have the basemap now. I tried a cut and past from the GC maps to the directory on the "new 310" but no dice. Other then that, it's a completely functional 310 unit although the firmware does seem a little sluggish. Just playing around, there's a lot less clicks involved to get to stuff vs that of the GC. Thanks much to the OP for posting it. I'll test it later to see the accuracy.

Edit: A few hours later, odometer and related features like avg mph seem to be really accurate now, the unit itself is accurate using some benchmarks but is a bit slow updating coordinates, thus you still get the boomerang effect on caches. Easier to read the descriptions of geocaches and such by making the font BOLD.

Now I cant seem to get a basemap to show up, tried the GC basemap but ran out of memory. VP is of no help.

Jim Rose

If you load up VP with the gps connected, you can click the transfer maps button in the sync box, and send over the basemap from VP, although it doesn't seem to be very good.

oobnuker, on 13 March 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

One question - does the new firmware then enable the other features of the 310 that are missing from the GC? It looks like the 310 has a few features in the navigation area that the GC is lacking.

If nothing else, this will get rid of that silly rotary menu in the GC - I hate that!

Yes it basically becomes a 310, no more rotary menu.

gpsblake, on 13 March 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Considering my GC was doing nothing but a paperweight, yea, I did this, and sure enough, it's a 310 now. The only problem is I can't get the detailed street maps transferred from the GC to the 310 so I just have the basemap now. I tried a cut and past from the GC maps to the directory on the "new 310" but no dice. Other then that, it's a completely functional 310 unit although the firmware does seem a little sluggish. Just playing around, there's a lot less clicks involved to get to stuff vs that of the GC. Thanks much to the OP for posting it. I'll test it later to see the accuracy.

Edit: A few hours later, odometer and related features like avg mph seem to be really accurate now, the unit itself is accurate using some benchmarks but is a bit slow updating coordinates, thus you still get the boomerang effect on caches. Easier to read the descriptions of geocaches and such by making the font BOLD.

Awesome!! The way the gc handled the basemap is different than the way the 310 does so the map is not compatible. If one was able to obtain the basemap from an actual 310 I suspect it would be simple to add it, but unfortunately the 310 update file does not contain this map.

Yhe VP basemap only has major cities and Interstate routes, which aren't much use; I enjoyed the exercise, but went back to GC. I;ll take a look at the maps on the 610, but I expect with the touchscreen it is not compatible. I had added Florida.imi and it worked on VP and showed up in the menu on the GC/310, but would not activate with 310 fw. Fun experience!

http://www.gpsfiledepot.com has a pretty extensive selection of free maps. I have loaded them on my old Garmin Etrex Legend CX. I wonder if they would be able to be loaded on the GC somehow. I am going to try the conversion soon. I don't use the map on GC anyway because it doesn't give turn by turn so it's really just a reference - but I have my iPhone 4 so I generally have full mapping and satellite capabilities on that if I need a visual. The GC gets me to the GZ once I'm already in the vicinity.

Not sure if the Garmin maps can transfer over to the Magellan or not but some Googling found that the 310 and up can take satellite maps. This would be a really cool thing to get on the GC. THAT would make the map much more functional for me at least. Like I said, without the turn by turn, the map on the GC is just a novelty. Having a satellite image would make the swaps over to the iphone less frequent when I'm stumped because typically I look at the satellite imagery to get a better idea of where I should be looking.

OK - I did the procedure as described and everything went well! I did some more research and realized that there are all sorts of licensing issues with converting Garmin maps to Magellan, etc. so that seems like it's not really an option. HOWEVER - I did find this site: http://maps4me.net/b...maps_explorist/ that has a lot of downloads for Magellan devices. It looks like there is a small yearly fee for downloads over a certain size or something, but it's a start.

Good deal, let us know how it works. I tried to transfer some of the Magellan topo maps to the "new 310" and it looks like it would accept them, except the maps are only licensed for one gps (my Triton). So the unit shows those maps as an option, but has the (x) through the options when I try to enable them.

So basically, upgrading the GC to the 310 does give you more options, but you lose the detailed street map.

The 310 is nothing but a GC with upgraded firmware, perhaps Magellan should reward it's loyal customers by giving the GC users a firmware upgrade.

A half decent basemap can be found in the Triton500 update from magellan. Just download the one you want or both, (NA or EU), then unpack the files and look in the \HDD\MAP_DATA\ folder and take the mgi file from there. Drag the map onto Vantagepoint and use the install maps button to send it to your gc/310. Or you could just place it in the \Maps\ folder of the gps manually. This is a much better basemap than the "detailed basemap" that comes with vantagepoint .

I am at the point where I wouldn't mind buying the Digital Globe subscription to get the satellite images on my GC, but it doesn't seem like I can purchase unless I have a device registered with Magellan that is compatible. Anyone know if this is true or if there is a work around. Was toying with the idea of "registering" a 310 banking on the chance that it will just accept whatever serial number I put in...

I have had the GC since it was introduced, but was not my primary GPSr. Planned on selling it and getting the 310, but got a 110 for $115. I did the GC conversion to 310 -- Thanks Savant. Tried to load the map from the 110 but it would not work. The 110 and 310 have very similar file and folders and the 110 map is a mgi format. The 110 works very similar except the 310 holds more geocaches, allows loading of maps, and has more sorting of geocaches options.

Used the converted 310 in the field and it works well. Did a 3 mile hike and the track log on GE was beautiful, one of the best I have seen.....except, the date of the track points was recorded as one day later, exactly 24 hours. It appears that the auto Time Zone setting was setting it incorrectly, so I am using manual Time Zone setting.

Great feedback EScout.
It appears that the basemap from the actual 310/110 is locked to the individual unit.

I suspect that the 110 may also work with this 310 conversion. If you care to be the guinea pig, you could try the same procedure with your 110. I also suspect that the 110 basemap would still work with that unit as the serial number doesn't change. Would be an interesting experiment.

If it does work as planned, a 110 - 310 conversion is one cheap 310....hahahah

I've done the upgrade to my Explorist GC and everything seems fine. I'm having a problem with maps though. I'm trying to use the US South topo map from maps4me.net. As soon as I zoom in past the 800 mile range, it immediately flashes up the "Restarting device to improve performance" screen. I can get closer if I go through the firmware and delete unnecessary files, such as the demo and skins, so I'm assuming this is a memory issue. Anybody have any ideas?

I had a similar issue using the Maps4me maps. As soon as I enabled the US NE maps the device rebooted and stuck there. I had to plug it into my PC and hit the reset button to delete the map in order to get it out of there. I tried deleting all maps besides the US NE one and tried again with the same results...

I've deleted everything off the unit that doesn't seem to be essential. There's at least 400M of free space, but I'm still having the problem. I don't think that it's a free space issue as referenced in the maps4me instructions for installing the maps. I'm not sure where to go from here...

I've deleted everything off the unit that doesn't seem to be essential. There's at least 400M of free space, but I'm still having the problem. I don't think that it's a free space issue as referenced in the maps4me instructions for installing the maps. I'm not sure where to go from here...

Maybe send a note to the developer of Maps4me. Or, ask a question in the Explorist Forum, the developer of Maps4me seems to frequent that forum regularly.

Another source of free maps is MAGicMaps, but it is for Canada only. It works for the Tritons, but I am not sure whether it works for these new Explorists.

I hate to say it, but I jumped ship. I enjoyed playing with the GC/310 but not ACTUALLY being able to put the maps that I needed on it was making me mad. I reverted it back to a GC and sold it for 85% of what I paid for it 3 months ago on eBay. I put that money toward a Dakota 20 at Cabelas and have been happy with that so far. Honestly, I liked the sharpness of the GC more than the Dakota 20, but touch screen is nice and the fact that I can actually add maps and whatnot to it makes it a winner. I would have stayed with the Magellan line as the x10 series seems really nice, but the 510 is the lowest model that has an electronic compass and was at least $40 more online - and like $70 more in the store - than the Dakota.

Glad it worked for you!
Are you looking to have the displayed find count correct or just to have the cache icons correct? If you reload a pq with one that has your finds included, they should be marked as such. This will not fix the displayed find count though, but I see little value in that number. I will look into where that info is stored if I get some time.

Created a PQ of My Finds but still no luck getting the icons to show up correctly. Not too concerned about the total number, as you say, of little value. Should I remove all my previous caches from the unit and start again, maybe loading the "My Finds" first? Any advice greatly appreciated.

Bill

This post has been edited by Aussiegoldminer: 13 August 2012 - 03:57 PM

Well after playing with the GC-310 unit for a few days I just couldn't get it to show my "found" caches as found on the unit. I guess I could have gone through them all one by one but not interested in doing that. I see that when I marked a cache as being found the 310 created a new GPX file but I couldn't edit my "Found" .gpx file to match it.

Also, the "Goto" compass page on the GC is better for my 5yo cacher who likes to hold the unit when hunting and can easily relate to the big compass screen.

Did the conversion on my GC last night without a hitch. Thanks a lot, Savant9! Love the 310 menu system and the additional capabilities. Looked for free maps to put on it, and then I remembered that MOBAC (Mobile Atlas Creator) version 1.8 had an .RMP output. Worked like a charm! Now when I hike or geocache, all I need to do is upload the maps required for the trip. I've been using MOBAC for a while now to put custom maps on my eTrex 20, and so it's an added benefit to use this free program for my Magellan. If anyone would like to try it, just google MOBAC 1.8. This is an older version that still works with many of the online mapping sites, unlike the newest MOBAC version. I'm a happy camper, er, hiker!

Has anyone been tried this with National Geographic TOPO maps from their software? I was thinking of buying the New York & New Jersey version to print paper maps, but it would be a great perk if it can also load maps into a GC with this mod.

I also have MOBAC, but still need to learn more about how to use it. Can that load Esri maps? or should I stick to the OSM Terrain maps.

I've worked with both for an online mapping site, and find both good, but sometimes one has strengths over the other

With version 2.15 for the GC, you won't need to hack it into a 310 to get Nat Geo maps, but you still get more features like a night map, better dashboard screens, ability to search by city and some other goodies.

OK - I did the procedure as described and everything went well! I did some more research and realized that there are all sorts of licensing issues with converting Garmin maps to Magellan, etc. so that seems like it's not really an option. HOWEVER - I did find this site: http://maps4me.net/b...maps_explorist/ that has a lot of downloads for Magellan devices. It looks like there is a small yearly fee for downloads over a certain size or something, but it's a start.

I am intent on getting satellite imagery on my GC/310!

side note, the link oobnuker posted, dead-ends with 'Content Not Found'.. simply go to the front page, http://maps4me.net

The site still exists, but you'll have to navigate around. Also the site looks like you need to register to gain access to the files.